


With A Heart of Precious Metal

by lowflyingfruit



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Ableism, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 08:53:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8838286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowflyingfruit/pseuds/lowflyingfruit
Summary: Five times Damian proved to someone he wasn't just angry, thoughtless and violent - and one time there was no proof required.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As usual for my work, I'm using a semi-random mashup of various continuities. There are also a couple of misogynistic slurs in here if that bothers anyone, mentions of animal death, and mentions of a presumed character death.

1.

 

It was not often that Alfred Pennyworth would admit to frustration, but he was most definitely frustrated now. _Of all the selfish, arrogant little -!_

He stopped mid-task, headfirst in a linen cupboard, and shook his head. Master Damian was ten, and for all his education with the League of Shadows, startlingly ignorant. Talia al Ghul had taught him military history, strategy, tactics, mathematics - any lacunae regarding Master Damian's socialisation were hardly his fault, and Alfred should not hold the boy responsible for them at his tender age. He was clearly frightened, afraid for his mother and unsure of his father. Damian's rudeness to him was clearly a way of asserting what meagre control he could over his environment, lashing out at someone whose social status he perceived to be inferior to his, and Alfred had corrected him as best he could.

This was all academic knowledge. In reality, the boy had quite the nerve. Not to mention a haughty demeanour Alfred would put money on being able to annoy a statue of a saint.

Inferior food, indeed. Inadequate quarters, indeed.

Pile of sheets in his arms, he returned to the room he had initially designated for Master Damian's use without knocking. It pained him, but there were more lessons to be learned here. When it came to the running of Wayne Manor, Alfred was not prepared to compromise.

"What are you doing here, Pennyworth?"

The boy snarled like an angry cat. Unfortunately, the claws he was likely to unsheathe would be more deadly. To extend the metaphor just a step further.

Alfred simply raised an eyebrow and said, "Why, I am preparing a guest room. I am afraid I shall have to ask you to vacate this one, Master Damian."

"You could not possibly have prepared the room I requested in such a short amount of time," Damian sneered.

"I have not," Alfred said calmly. "The room you ordered I prepare already belongs to someone else. It is Master Jason's room."

"Jason Todd does not live here. He rejected my father. He does not need that room. He does not deserve that room. I want it."

When it came to the running of Wayne Manor, and young Master Damian attempting to use the household itself as a power play with his brothers, Alfred was not prepared to compromise.

"Your father promised Master Jason that the room was his," Alfred said. He kept his tone placid, knowing it would anger the boy. "He selected it himself as a boy. As Master Bruce still calls Master Jason his son, has repeatedly promised that Master Jason will always have a home here should he desire it, and there is no pressing demand on space in the Manor, I see no reason why I should displace Master Jason in his absence. The room is his, and you shall have to choose another."

Damian hesitated. "Then I want the one on the corner in that corridor."

The hesitation, Alfred suspected, was Master Damian gauging whether he could ask for Master Timothy's room. "That belongs to Master Richard and my answer is the same. Incidentally, attempting to evict him and Master Jason from their rooms in the Manor will not evict them from their places in your father's affections."

That garnered a reaction from the boy. A faint trace of red in his cheeks. Whether it was anger or embarrassment, Alfred did not yet have the experience to tell. It could even be both. "I am trying to do no such thing," he insisted.

"As you say." He set the clean sheets on the bedside table. "Now, Master Damian, seeing as you do not want this room, I really must insist you vacate it so I may have it guest-ready. If you select another, currently unoccupied, bedroom for yourself, I will see that your belongings are installed there."

The boy attempted to glare at him. The glare was more effective with Master Bruce's additional height and weight, not to mention his mature jawline. Puppy fat was rarely intimidating. Then there was the fact that Alfred had outwaited the mature version of that glare many a time. He waited now, and eventually Master Damian cracked, sneered, and left. He kicked at the door on his way out, leaving a scuff mark. Alfred listened to the none-too-subtle stomping all the way down the hall.

At least he had shown that he would not be bullied, Alfred thought, as he went about the chores of changing the bedlinens and wiping every surface for fingerprints. Then he would have to vacuum. It was irritating to have to do this again not three hours after Master Damian's arrival in the house, but he took pride in maintaining the family's living quarters.

Thirty minutes later, he spotted movement out the corner of his eye, outside the window. Someone was in the grounds, and it was not Master Bruce. Immediately, he shifted to one side, so he could observe without being observed in return.

Alfred checked his immediate startled reaction - a figure that small had to be Master Damian, and he would simply have to adjust to the boy's presence in the house. If he was to live here, he would of course be entitled to have the run of the grounds. Having the run of the grounds was also functioning as a metaphor at the moment, as Master Damian was taking advantage of the flat grassy area below the window to practice some minor acrobatics.

He was quite accomplished at them. Perhaps not as much as he might think, by the standards of Batman and his associates, but accomplished.

Alfred was just about to turn away when he saw Damian twist abruptly out of a move and bend down to the grass. Suddenly concerned that the boy might be hurt, Alfred moved for a better look.

Damian was bending over, and bringing something up in his cupped hands. Whatever he had picked up, he scowled at it fiercely, then looked around. His gaze stopped at a tree.

The boy kept one hand cupped gently around the object as he slowly and carefully shimmied up. As Damian leaned along a branch, Alfred realised: it was a bird. Master Damian had found a bird that had fallen out of its nest, and was taking it upon himself to return it.

The care he was taking was not what Alfred would have expected from the boy. If only he had learned such respect for the lives of his fellow humans. He went about his chores and thought nothing more about it.

Until the next morning, that was, when he could not help but notice Master Damian had checked on the nest again. He did the same the morning after, and the morning after that. Every morning that week he checked, without fail. On the eighth morning, Damian stayed out longer than usual, then came inside and picked a screaming fight with Master Timothy. Both boys were bleeding before Master Bruce defused the situation.

When Alfred went outside to rest his ringing ears, he found a small patch of disturbed earth beneath the tree with the bird nest. It was so carefully moulded that it could be nothing but a miniature grave.

Compassion, dedication, grief handled with anger. Alfred knew those personality traits very well indeed. Now they had only to teach him to apply his compassion and dedication to human beings as well as he did sick and injured birds.

He had the birdfeeder installed that very day.

Master Damian said, "Thank you, Pennyworth."

An improvement, Alfred thought, and said, "You are quite welcome, Master Damian."

 

2.

 

Here comes the new Robin, same as the old Robin. Steph knew it was a joke in some places - all those male Robins with black hair. If only the wisecrackers knew that they all had blue eyes as well. Batman (well, the old Batman, for sure) would never have heard the end of it.

In the meantime, black hair and blue eyes were the  _only_ things Damian Wayne had in common with Tim. Or with Dick, for that matter. Here comes the new Batman, same as the old Batman,  _as if_. 

The old Batman would not have gone to Babs, pulled his cowl down to reveal a truly exhausted face, and asked, "Oracle, can you and Batgirl look after Robin tonight while I take care of something for the League?" Oh, no. Old Batman would have just grunted at them something like "Take Robin. I have League business." Explaining why he needed to leave Robin with them, optional. Then he would have ninja-vanished on them, leaving Robin behind, without waiting for an answer.

Steph thought she could get used to New Batman. New Robin she wasn't crazy about.

"Tt. Are you daydreaming  _again_ , Fatgirl?"

"Yep," she said, eyes fixed on the street three storeys below, searching for signs of crime. "About the new and hotter Batman. Think he'll ever give me his real number and not the Bat-hotline to the Bat-cave?"

"Tt!"

It was so not her imagination. He was more indignant this time. "Just kidding," she said. "Everyone knows Red Robin's the  _really_ hot one in your family." She missed Tim so bad it hurt. She was over her crush on him, but he was still quality friend material. And the little shit next to her who wouldn't stop making cracks about her weight and skills had tried to kill him. If she had reservations about New Batman, it was his decision to take on new Robin.

(New Batman had taken her aside privately before he left, and said, "I'm sorry, Steph, he's going to be a pain in the ass. He's going to say nasty things to you - let me know after I get back, because I'm not going to let him get away with treating you like crap, I just can't stop him from doing it tonight, I'm working on it. Just, please, don't let him get himself killed."

"Sure," Steph had said, as New Batman pulled his cowl up and got ready to go. "Nobody wants angry al Ghuls on their ass." What she'd meant to say was  _are you fucking insane? He tried to_ kill Tim _and you made him Robin?_ It just didn't come out that way.

It must have showed on her face anyway, because he had said, "He can be better than he is, Batgirl. I owe you for this.")

And he bloody well did owe her for this. At least winding the poor kid up was good fun. The look on his face for describing Tim as hot was priceless.

"Harlot," new Robin grumbled.

Before Steph could start on a more serious comment about maybe  _not_ calling people harlots, Oracle hailed them. "Get moving, guys, there's a dustup in the Hanging Judge - a few of Black Mask's men wandered in there like lost little lambs and Two-Face's guys reacted like you'd expect. Time to shake them down for information while they're concussed."

"That sounds like just the job for Robin!" Steph said brightly. "Come on, Robin, we're going to interview some lackeys!"

The Hanging Judge was the preferred bar of Two-Face's men. It was about a mile, even crossing the rooftops for a more direct route. Robin kept up pretty well for someone who wasn't used to Gotham. As they drew closer, she asked, "What information are we shaking them down for, O?"

"If Black Mask's guys are awake, ask them about turf deals with the Penguin and see if you can get anything about their moves into Bludhaven. Two-Face's guys, the next round of burglary targets."

"Gotcha." She turned to Robin, a few steps behind for safer grappling. They'd look pretty silly if they bumped into each other in midair. "What about you, Grouchy? You gotcha?"

"I understand," Robin said stiffly.

This kid was going to need a  _lot_ of practice interviewing anyone. From what she'd heard from both O and New Batman, the current Robin was more of the stab stab stab type, rather than the diligently collect evidence type. Which brought her back to just how little he was like Tim. How did a Robin even Robin when they didn't know the basics of detectiving?

Whatever. Looking over the aftermath of the brawl, which had spilled out onto the street, Steph pointed out three guys on the wobblier side of the consciousness spectrum. "You take those guys," she instructed Robin. "I'll get the others."

Robin looked at them disdainfully and said, "Fine."

Ten minutes later, she was busy trying to get information from a loser who thought that because she was blonde and female, she wasn't serious about punching him out. He'd called her "bitch" twice and he was on his last warning. Behind her, an arrogant yet distinctly pre-pubescent voice said, "You're wasting your time, Batgirl."

It was an improvement on 'Fatgirl,' but even so - "I'm working here, Robin."

"Please. There have to be half a dozen men lying unconscious on the bar floor who know more than this scum."

"Fuck you," the man growled. It had to be an instinctive reaction to Robin's voice. "I'm in with Black Mask."

"It can't be very high," Damian sneered. Steph could hear the wealth and privilege oozing off every syllable. "You're flat on your back in a Gotham street while the people your boss trusts are negotiating in Bludhaven."

"My friend has a point," Steph said.

"Stupid whore," the man sneered. "It's 'cause I'm going to the meetings with the Penguin."

Damian scoffed, and Steph wanted to punch  _him_ even though she knew he was both trying to help her out, and actually helping her out. "What meetings with the Penguin? He'd never stoop so low as to negotiate with the likes of you."

"Shows what you know," the thug said. "A bunch of us met with his guys in person, in the Iceberg Lounge and everything. We're trading everything west of Mercer Street for access to the highway."

And with that said, Steph punched him between the eyes. _Night-night bad guy, may you have a headache when you wake up._ She turned to Robin and said, "Postmortem on the roof?"

"Fine."

She took them three rooftops away, just to be sure it was only them. "First," she said, "Thanks for your help. I was kind of worried you'd be terrible at this, but goading him was a good tactic. I'm sorry I underestimated you."

"Tt. Of course you underestimated me."

The kid was blushing. It undermined his lofty air a bit. That made it the perfect time to continue. "Second - that's not going to work on anyone smarter than a rock. Did you get anything from the other guys I told you to talk to?"

"They were useless," Damian said.

That meant no. "Oh boy. You are sticking with me, and we are teaching you how to interview people properly. Third. If you call anyone a harlot again, I'm going to call in a favour or two and get Batman and O to team up to kick your ass. By the time they're done with you, you won't even be able to look at a computer, and then _I'm_  going to kick your ass. Got it?"

"As if you could," he sneered, but he didn't call her a harlot. Fear-based respect was better than nothing.

Besides, she knew enough about the kid to know it wasn't entirely fear-based respect. He was too unguarded to hide that. It was hard to think of him just as "brat who tried to kill Tim" when he blushed at a compliment. And at least he was self-aware enough to make his sheer irritation factor an interrogation technique.

New Batman might have a point.

 

3.

 

It was a dark and stormy night, and Jason was busy avoiding the places where Batman and Robin might patrol. Jason hadn't changed that habit just because there was a new Batman in town, with a new Robin by his side.

He'd heard the rumours already that the new Robin was the most vicious so far. Apparently he had a sword. Dick had let his new Robin out, with a sword. Yet Jason shot one rapist to death, and the next time they encountered each other on patrol Batman would probably be all "you must be sent to Arkham, Jason!"

So he avoided them. Simple as that.

It didn't stop any resentful thoughts about that Bat-hypocrite. _Leave them alive._ _We don't kill. Yeah? Maybe don't let your Robin use a sword. Maybe then I'll buy it._

Tonight he was tracking down some drug runners. He'd been on the trail for a few weeks without a hint of involvement from the so-called "dynamic duo," and he figured this was exactly the sort of thing he could handle by himself. He knew some of the product was making its way into the school around the corner from his secondary safe house. When these guys had set up, they'd forgotten to take into account the views from surrounding fire escapes. In Gotham. The city famous for having vigilantes who dropped on you from great heights. Dopes. Jason could see right into the kitchen.

Residential buildings were always tricky. Guns were a bad idea when combined with cheap apartment walls. Too easy for a bullet to go through and hit someone who had nothing to do with anything. There were multiple entryways and a bunch of rooms.

Still, it wasn't impossible. Six guys, not expecting anything, only two of them with their guns on their person. He could go through the window just fine. There was a good angle if he got to the landing just below him.

He slunk down, silent even with his combat boots, counted the men again, and then swung in through the closed window boots-first.

It shattered with an extremely satisfying crash.

The men in the room were all too stunned to react straight away, which gave Jason time to punch the closest man hard in the face. He wasn't one of the two with their guns on them. Jason went for the one on the left, a short, compact figure who was already aiming for him. Good reaction time. Jason grinned (not that they could see it under his helmet), dropped, and swept his legs out from under him. He also landed with a satisfying crash. Jason used the rest of his momentum to rise again and leap towards the downed man, stomping hard on his left hand, the one he'd used to draw his gun.

He was swinging towards his third goon when he heard the door kicked open and a roar of "What's going on here?"

Then there was the ominous click of a shotgun. There were two men between Jason and the man with the shotgun. Two of the bigger guys. A desperation lunge would likely get him filled full of shot.

Well,  _fuck_.

On the upside, if there were seven whole guys here overseeing this little packaging operation, there was serious money involved in this haul. He'd found something important.

Betting that the shotgun guy wouldn't fire through his buddies, Jason kept swinging at goon number three, then rolled into the other room, kicking the door shut behind him. Four to one, two of them with guns, now on alert. He looked for a window.

No window. Double fuck. He  _hated_ being cornered. And he still couldn't fire randomly into this apartment, unlike  _some_ people, because unlike  _some_ people he cared if he might hit innocents. Maybe Roy could do it with his arrows, or even with bullets, but Jason didn't trust his aim as much as Roy trusted his. Too many things could go wrong.

That meant he was going to be charging in. And he had seconds to do so before they came in here with the guns they didn't care if they missed with. It probably wouldn't get him killed. It would probably get him a few unpleasant bruises.

Jason quickly wedged himself in an upper corner, as far above the door as he could. It opened in, so whoever opened it would have to advance that bit further into the room unless they kicked it. The dark vision in his helmet showed the handle turning. Jason grinned to himself again.  _Idiots_.

But before the goon advanced, just before Jason's leap became irreversible, there was a _second_ crash from outside. "It's Robin!" someone screamed.

Robin?

Didn't matter. The guy who had been opening the door was pretty fucking distracted by Robin's dynamic entry. Jason pounced, knee landing solidly in the shotgun-wielder's chest. He heard a crack. It sounded like a bone. Not far, he heard a series of light punches pounding into someone, followed by a few grunts and a thud. Robin throwing someone to the ground. Two down, two to go, and both of them were focused on Robin.

Jason was almost insulted. He was two feet taller, and he had  _guns_. Even if he wouldn't fire them in here. He was way scarier than a Robin with a sword. Even if, he noticed, Robin didn't have his sword out right now. He made the goons pay for ignoring him by grabbing them and knocking their heads together. It didn't actually knock them out, but it sent both of them reeling, and from there Jason punched one out, while Robin hit the other.

They ended up facing each other over two unconscious drug-running goons.

"So," Jason said, "What are  _you_ doing here?"

"I saw you enter," Robin said.

Jason took off his helmet. He still had the backup domino underneath it; he wasn't worried about having his identity revealed, and it meant that Robin could see the grin that was threatening to stretch off his face and bared most of his teeth. "So like a good little Robin you ran in to be a distraction."

"It made sense," Robin said,  _very_ defensively.

"What would Batman say if he saw you rush in like that?" Jason wondered aloud. "You wouldn't even have had time to check the blueprints. Oh, who am I kidding, the new guy would do exactly the same thing in most cases."

Surprisingly enough, Robin puffed up with indignation and sneered at him. "Batman would not have been trapped in a windowless room by a mere seven imbeciles as you were."

"Shut up, I wasn't trapped. You saw me hit that guy's sternum with my kneecap. They were all going that way whether you burst in or not." Then, "What do you care, anyway, word is it's fifty-fifty on whether you listen to him."

That indignant scowl intensified. It was like looking at a mini-Batman. A mini- _Bruce_. "Half the time he's worth listening to."

Jason shook his head. Insane distraction techniques and insane defensiveness of Batman. Sword or not, this kid had the important parts of the Robin gig down pat. "Run along, brat. I got this. You can tell the new guy I didn't kill any of them."

"I will," Robin said threateningly. Why he made it a threat Jason didn't know, because he didn't plan to kill any of these guys. So make that insane distraction techniques, insane defensiveness of Batman,  _and_ the irritating  _we don't kill_ threat. Oh, this kid was going to go far as Robin.

 

4.

 

This was the price he paid for insisting Damian go about his life as usual whilst he readjusted to his own. The school he attended (and  _how_ had Dick persuaded him to attend?) had already called him and asked for him to come in for a meeting regarding Damian's behaviour.

Bruce thought he now understood why Dick had so gleefully and promptly filled in the change of guardianship forms for the school.

He arrived in the office and got a glimpse of Damian sitting rigidly in a chair outside the principal's office. His son looked somehow small and actually childlike in his blazer and striped tie. It was only a glimpse, though, before the executive assistant (Mrs Mallos, he remembered from the call itself) smiled at him and asked, "Mr Wayne, yes? Thank you for coming down so quickly."

It had been a long time since he'd had to put on the Brucie act. He put on his easiest smile and said, "Yes, that's right. I hear Damian's got himself in a bit of trouble, right?"

"I'm afraid I'm not the one to talk to you about that, Mr Wayne," she said. "Hold on a second and I'll let Mr Willis know you're here."

"Thank you very much."

The gap in conversation as she leaned over to hit her intercom was all Bruce needed to make eye contact with Damian. As well as uncomfortable, he appeared unhurt. Bruce wasn't surprised. Damian had fought far worse dangers than other eleven-year-olds. If it had been Dick, or Jason, or Tim sitting in that chair, Bruce would have known how to read him better, how to signal them without visibly breaking his Brucie character. With Damian, who he had only known for a scant and irregular few weeks before his unscheduled journey through time, he would have to play it by ear.

Whatever Damian read in him, it made him scowl like a thundercloud. It struck him just how much Damian resembled him physically. "Hey, Damian," he said. "Stay out here until I talk to Mr Willis, okay?"

More scowling. Heavier. Bruce could only too easily believe that Damian had started a fight.

Once he was inside the principal's office, Mr Willis stood and offered a hand. He was a well-presented man with a sharp charcoal suit, a crisp red tie, and carefully combed sandy hair. He was taller than Bruce, though not so broad, and his grip was business-textbook firm. "Mr Wayne. Good to meet you."

Bruce returned his own business-textbook handshake. "And you," he said. "What's this about Damian, hey?"

"Mr Wayne -"

"Bruce, please."

"Bruce. Well. As we informed you, Damian was in a fight earlier today. It's not the first he's been in. I understand that you're recently returned to Gotham? Has Richard told you much about Damian's...disciplinary issues?"

 _No._ "Oh, I'm sure he mentioned it, when he was trying to catch me up with what's been happening while I was overseas." He waved vaguely. "Damian's pretty active. I'm sure it's just high spirits."

"With respect, Bruce, I'm afraid it isn't. This is the fourth time this year Damian has been in a physical altercation with another student. Granted, they've become less frequent over time, but they need to _stop_. Richard argued, and I agreed at the time, that a change of schools would do more harm than good considering the other changes in his life. It's time to start considering sending Damian to a new school next year."

Four fights. This was no disciplinary action, this was effectively an expulsion. "If it's all the same to you," Bruce said, injecting some dubiety into his tone. "I'll have another chat with Dick and Damian, and we'll come up with something."

Willis sighed. "We'll miss your contribution to the school community, but I honestly think this would be best for everyone."

 _They'll miss Wayne money, but not the liability issues Damian's behaviour causes them_ , Bruce translated in his head. "Got any recommendations?"

The discussion took another half hour and resulted in no further conclusion than 'Damian will not be welcome here next school year'. At the end of it, he collected Damian from where he'd been fuming outside the office, said goodbye to the PA, and left, all without breaking Brucie character. He let it drop once they were in the car, tinted windows hiding them both from onlookers. "What happened?" he asked Damian.

"One of my classmates likes to pick on people who are smaller, weaker, female, or of a different ethnicity to him," Damian said, not making eye contact. "He doesn't strike anyone. He only uses words to hurt."

"So you hit him." In the nose, bloodying it, according to the principal.

Damian was still scowling, and now Bruce sensed that  _he_ was the target of that ire. "I didn't immediately resort to violence. I tried to -  _correct_ him first. Verbally. It didn't work.  _Then_ I hit him." His son looked up at him, glaring. "I did not endanger my identity as Robin."

When Damian had first come to Gotham he had attempted to kill Tim. He had ruthlessly used claims of superior breeding in his attempts to displace Tim as Robin. He had visited Wayne Enterprises once without a care for secrecy. Damian was still angry - but not at the same things. "I believe you," Bruce said.

"You're not going to ground me?"

"As Damian? For standing up to a bully? No."

"Then as Robin?"

A bloodied nose instead of a murder attempt. An effort to talk instead of going straight to violence. "I don't see you've done anything to deserve it. Robin is not grounded either." They drove on for a little while, and Bruce added, "We'll find you a new school."

 

5.

 

It took seconds. Just  _seconds_. Nightwing got to his rebreather, but that was apparently enough time to inhale enough of the new fear gas to seriously affect him. Tim watched as Nightwing got out of the building, got clear - and then start staggering against the closest wall. He hit his communicator immediately. "Red Robin to Cave, we need a pickup straight away. Nightwing's got a lungful of fear gas."

It was bad. The three of them had been working to track down Scarecrow for the past week (Red Robin had joined in reluctantly, never eager to spend time with his murderous replacement), and they were fresh out of antidotes. There had been civilians who needed the doses they carried, and who didn't carry rebreathers around. They had all decided that prevention was better than cure.

The antidotes had helped the civilians, in that it reduced their symptoms to the point they shouldn't die of terror. When they had left the affected people, it was clear they were all in for painful, distressing nights. The Scarecrow's new formula was a doozy.

Now Nightwing was the one breathing hard and fast. Tim grappled down the building where he'd been playing backup, but Robin beat him there. "Nightwing!" the little brat called. "Nightwing, respond!" He grabbed Nightwing, by now gasping and shaking, completely lost to the effects of Scarecrow's drug, and shook him even more.

Tim hit the ground near them and nudged Robin out of the way, none too gently. "Hold his arms," he instructed him. "Make sure he doesn't hurt himself. I need to check him over."

Pulse first - racing. Tim delicately peeled Nightwing's mask up, to reveal blank, unseeing eyes with pupils like pinpricks. He was tensing his muscles so much that he had to be experiencing quite a bit of pain as well.

"Hurry up," Robin snapped at him.

"There's nothing to do for him right now," Tim said, trying to keep his own voice level even though his own heart was pounding with fear. He pulled Nightwing's mask back down. "I called for the car and told Penny-One what happened. There'll be an antidote in there."

Robin snarled, "The antidotes don't work."

"The antidote will keep him alive," Tim corrected. "Just don't lose your grip." One of the civilians had started clawing at her face in artificially-induced terror. Another had started thrashing; Tim would be surprised if she hadn't fractured her arm in her violent fit. He scaled the wall again and started scanning the streets for the Batmobile. The sooner it got here the better.

As the minutes went by, below him, he could hear the gasps turn to almost-sobs. "Is it here yet?" Robin called up.

"No!"

"You're  _useless_."

Tim dropped back down. "Excuse me?" he asked, stepping towards that  _murderous, selfish -_. "Who spotted him first? Who called the car? It wasn't you, you little brat. You don't even care about him. Always running in, trying to get him killed -"

" _You_ were the one who abandoned him! You didn't get exactly what you wanted from him so you ran off when he needed you! And you call  _me_ the brat?"

It wasn't fear making his heart beat faster now. As even sharper words leapt to mind, Dick's sobs became low, drawn-out moans. His head twitched between Damian and Tim, reacting to their anger. They turned to him simultaneously, and Tim could almost see Damian coming to the same conclusion as he did.

"Just don't say anything and we'll get through this just fine," Tim said, much more quietly than he had been about to speak.

Damian just pulled Nightwing closer to him, knuckles turning white as he fought against the older man's efforts to free and/or hurt himself. For his part, Tim grabbed a wad of bandages, tied them in a gag, and secured it in Dick's mouth, before moving to hold his head still. He didn't want Dick to get the idea to beat his head against anything. "Take off your cape. We'll use it to cushion his head."

Surprisingly, Damian did. And he did it without complaint, either.

It was another five minutes before the Batmobile pulled up. Another five minutes of sitting far too close to Damian and listening to Dick's animalistic terror. The gag was distressing him, and Damian obviously knew it and blamed Tim for it from the glares he kept shooting Tim, but without the gag Dick might deliberately bite down on his tongue. Not happening. Not on Tim's watch.

Abandon Dick. If it wasn't for  _Damian_ -

He heard the car. Tim leapt to his feet, sprinted over, and opened the door. The antidotes were in  _this_ compartment - here. "Hold him still," Tim ordered, returning. He didn't trust Damian with sharp objects near Dick's neck. Carefully, so carefully, he injected the antidote. Within a minute, Dick's heartbeat was back to a healthier pace, but he was still struggling and whining. Dick, whining. Not in the  _my life is so hard_ sense, either, but  _I have lost the words to express my pain_ whining.

"We need to get him back to the Cave," Damian said. "Are you just going to stand there all night,  _Red Robin_?"

Tim restrained the urge to punch him. "I'll take his head," Tim said. He didn't trust Damian to support Dick's upper body either.

The next problem was working out where they would ride. Dick had to go in one of the seats with heavy restraints. Tim planned on driving. That left Damian, who said, "I'm not leaving him," and strapped himself into the restraint seat next to Dick.

"Fine." They didn't have time to argue. For the record, Tim didn't like the idea of Damian alone with a restrained Dick either.

Tim sped back to the Cave, where Alfred was waiting for them. "He hasn't stopped making those...noises," Damian reported as he helped haul Nightwing out of the backseat and onto the waiting gurney. Tim had never heard Damian sound so unnerved.

"It will be all right," Alfred said. Tim had never seen anyone try to reassure Damian either. To be honest he'd never thought that the heartless little demon might  _need_ reassurance. "Master Timothy will no doubt synthesise a more effective antidote, and in the meantime you can help by staying close to Master Richard."

As Tim hurried away to do exactly what Alfred had said, he heard Damian let out a distinctive "Tt."

When Tim went to administer his new and improved antidote, which would hopefully take care of the last few effects of the Scarecrow's gas, he found Damian asleep in a chair next to Dick, who was still tossing and turning. Gently as possible, Tim held Dick's head still. As he administered the second mixture, Damian stirred. "What are you doing?"

"Antidote," Tim said brusquely. "It should help."

"Fine," Damian replied. He made no moves to stop him. He made no moves at all, and bristled when Tim sat down on Dick's other side as the modified antidote  _finally_ took proper effect. Murderous, selfish little git Damian might be, but Tim had been wrong about this much: he really did care about Dick.

It was a hard fact for him to swallow.

 

1.

 

There was no funeral. There couldn't be.

As far as the general public was concerned, Bruce Wayne was still alive. Dick, for one, would have liked the closure. Bruce Wayne had raised him as much as Batman had - the real Bruce Wayne, the quiet, serious man who was happiest working on cases in the Cave. Dick wanted to mourn  _him_ publicly. Jason was aggressively not caring in order to hide how much he actually cared. Tim was - Tim was in denial, and Dick didn't know how to help him. Cass was nowhere to be found.

And Damian was lurking in the Cave at all hours, lashing out at training dummies. Since he used a real sword, it was hard on the dummies. When he was done with the dummies, he practiced hand-to-hand. Then he practiced with batarangs.

Whenever Dick was in the Cave with him, hard, suspicious blue eyes followed his every move. Whenever Alfred made a request of him, he snapped and sulked and generally made a nuisance of himself. Whenever Tim was around, he hid, and when Dick asked why he felt the need to hide from  _Tim_ of all people, Damian declared that Tim was his mortal enemy and his rival and an unworthy student of his father's techniques.

Occasionally Damian slept - or, rather, passed out in unobtrusive places. Whenever Dick found him, he moved Damian to his bed, so deeply asleep from overwork that he barely twitched at the relocation.

He talked about it with Alfred as they packed up Bruce's belongings. Unlike Bruce, Dick would much rather  _not_ keep semi-permanent memorials to his dead father around the house, as though Bruce might just one day walk back in and ask which tie would work better for the shareholder's meeting.

"Whatever you're doing, you're doing it well enough for the moment," Alfred said. "Master Damian slept a whole three hours in his own bed last night."

It sounded sarcastic, though Dick knew it was an actual improvement. "I wish I could help him more," Dick said. "Jason won't let me within fifty feet, if I mention Bruce being gone Tim shuts me out, Cass  _still_ won't answer her phone - I wish I could help just one of them."

"He reminds me very much of his father," Alfred said. His voice cracked a little on the words.

"Really? I was going to say he reminds me of...well. Me. Remember how I was when Bruce first brought me to live here?"

"While I see the similarity in your shared tendency to overtrain in times of emotional distress, I have yet to find Master Damian on any chandeliers, Master Richard." Alfred folded another shirt into a neat square, and lightly slapped Dick's hand away from an attempt to mimic the process, pointing him instead to taking jackets off their hangers. "I dare say you were also a tad less full of yourself and far less inclined to attempting murder."

"I was so angry," Dick said. "I didn't have the skills then that Damian does now. If I could have killed Zucco with a quadruple somersault off the trapeze, I would have done it in a heartbeat." He had wanted to kill people many times over his career first as Robin and then as Nightwing - but he'd had a teacher. Someone to show him a better way. Damian hadn't had that.

Strange, how easy it was at the moment to recall how it was for him after his parents were murdered. Maybe it was because of what happened to Bruce. Bruce had also died by violence, and Dick didn't feel anything  _like_ the anger that had almost overwhelmed him as a boy. He just wanted to mourn the third parent he'd lost before the age of thirty, and help his siblings do the same.

He thought he might know what to do for Damian, at least. "Robin," he said.

Alfred looked up sharply. "It's a bad idea, Master Richard."

"Any worse an idea than it was to make  _me_ Robin?" He shook his head. "Damian needs something to do. A purpose. And he needs guidance. I think I can do it, Alfred. We both know Bruce wouldn't want to see him go back to Talia and grow up an assassin."

"He has already grown up an assassin."

"Halfway," Dick insisted. "There's another half to go."

"And Master Timothy?"

Tim. Dick would have to handle that just right, if he was really going to do this, and the more he spoke the more he was convinced this was the best course of action for all of them. "Tim's not a sidekick anymore. He's ready for better things. He's worked his own cases for  _years_ , he leads his own team, he's more than prepared to take his own name."

Alfred finished packing a box and taped it shut with a very final sound. "It is not his intellectual readiness that is of concern. He is grieving, as are we all."

"I know," Dick said sadly. When Tim accepted the truth, and he would eventually, it was not going to be pretty. "I don't mean to abandon him, especially not now. But I can't help him any way except to be there for him, and not as Batman." He taped up his own box. "Let's get these out of here, Alf."

At the bottom of the stairs, he spotted Damian. Hiding in the shadows, uncertain in this huge unfriendly house that belonged to a man he had hardly known, worried about what was coming next. Dick knew too well what what felt like.

"Dami," he called out, "We need to talk later."

Damian edged out slightly, revealing his usual angry, suspicious face. "What about, Grayson?"

"What we're going to do next."

Damian narrowed his eyes at him just like Bruce would have. "We?"

"Yeah, Damian. What we're going to do next."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! All feedback is appreciated!


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